Chapter 601: The Stargazer
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
Observatory, City of Dawn in Graycastle.
With the collapse of Timothy's regime, the name of the king's city had gone with the wind. Astrologer of Dispersion Star had expected turbulence after that, but out of his expectation, the order of the city did not change a lot. People still moved through their daily routines. Farmers tilled their land in the suburbs, stonemasons worked on repairing the damaged city wall and blacksmiths banged over the armors in the store. The patrol team continued to play the cat-and-mouse game with the refugees in Black Street. It still seemed to be one of the most prosperous cities in the kingdom.
There were also some inevitable changes. For example, everyday people left the king's city to find new chances in the Western Region. The Alchemist Workshop in the king's city, the old rival of the Astrology Association, even moved out from City of Dawn. Some nobles, who had remained unknown to the public before, appeared within the palace now scrambling for the land and power left by the former noble families. As for the sages, they were completely forgotten. No one came to inquire about the future of the kingdom or ask them to foretell the future.
If it was not for the food and gold royals regularly provided by the officials left by His Majesty Roland, those apprentices of the Astrological Station would have already fled.
Luckily, they still worked for the Astrology Association even now.
As long as the Astrological Station existed, the mission of the astrologers would not be suspended.
"The Forever Stargazer"
The sun sank into the mountains in the west. The color of the sky changed from a gamboge to a dull red, and eventually to a deep purple... As the night fell, the astrologers started their work.
The wind-proof oil lamp had been ignited on a hathpace. The apprentices carried stargazing gears out of the warehouse one by one. They had to be extremely careful when moving these things in order to avoid any damage. Otherwise, they would be punished by lashes and salary deduction. The stargazing gears sent by His Majesty Roland were handled with the greatest care.
The Astrologer of Dispersion Star had not taken these instruments in the wooden box from Roland seriously when he had received them.
Admittedly, His Majesty had once promised to bring more advanced stargazing gears to the Astrology Association, but the preparation of the instruments was a process of extreme complexity. It usually took about a year to select the materials and manufacture a stargazing gear, and would cost approximately 100 gold royals.
If there were any similarities with the sage arts, the most obvious feature would be money-consumption. Astrology could hardly produce anything like the products obtained from alchemy, which could grow in popularity due to the nobles and rich merchants supporting the alchemists. Therefore, only the capital of a country could afford to build an observatory. Based on what he knew, Border Town had still been a shabby, poor place only two years ago. He had thought that even if the Western Region had plundered a large sum of money from waging wars, they were not necessarily willing to allocate these gold royals to the astrologers far away.
However, Astrologer of Dispersion Star had been stunned the moment he had opened the wooden box.
He had never seen such a tool for observing stars. Different from the bamboo-shaped instrument used by the Astrology Association, its metal cylinder was the size of a bucket. The glass mirror embedded was bright enough to reflect the image of the people. No trace of scratches could be found on it, no matter how close one got to see.
The active gear of the stargazing gear was an ingenious design. It was merely a thumb-sized rotary knob at the tail end and was very convenient to use. As long as you pinched it and rotated gently, the distance between the lens could be corrected, and there was no need to lock it after the adjustment.
His Majesty Roland gave him three batches of new-style stargazing gears, six instruments in total. The king had given them a simple name "astronomical telescope".
Dispersion Star did not want to give an eye to his original old-fashioned instrument after he used the astronomical telescope.
The rest of five telescopes were naturally handed over to the five most experienced astrologers in the Astrological Station.
"Master, all of the stargazing gears are in their places," Yun, the chief disciple reported.
"Have you finished the division of the constellation?"
"Yes. Astrologer of Brightsky Star who is responsible for the North One area, is ill today, and Astrologer of Void Star will take his place," he glimpsed at the log book in his hand and said.
"Then light the flame, we shall start to observe star." The chief astrologer ordered.
"Yes!"
The fire blazed out from the brazier in the center of the Astrological Station, which symbolized the brightest Phospherus in the night sky. The whole hathpace was strictly arranged in accordance with the star image, and the astrologers stood around the brazier, like the companion stars of the Phospherus. By doing so, they seemed to be a part of the starry sky.
Apart from the invaluable stargazing gears, cultivating qualified astrologers also required a long time.
Their eyes were the only thing which they could depend on to do their job well.
Therefore, one of the prerequisites to be a qualified astrologer was to protect their own eyes. Although Dispersion Star was 50 years old, his eyesight was still better than that of most young people in City of Dawn.
It was really not an easy thing at all.
After being selected as the astrologer apprentices, what they could see in the night was only the stars in the sky. Reading books under the oil lamp and candles was absolutely prohibited. In addition, they had to avoid strong sunlight, and they were not permitted to go out at high noon.
The corresponding changes would be made for meals. It was of primary significance to eat animal innards and eyes. What's more, fish and spice were prohibited. According to the knowledge of the former astrologers, eating bloody meals was beneficial for the eyes. The fish was the property of water and the spice was that of the earth. The former would damage the element of fire in the blood flow while the latter would induce blindness.
Dispersion Star had stuck to those dietary requirements for more than 40 years.
He believed that the span of an eyes life was limited.
In order to use his eyes to observe the stars for as long as possible, Dispersion Star seldom read books and stellar maps. But he did not need to because the constellation had been deeply engraved in his mind.
Astrologer of Dispersion Star directed his eyes to the telescopic sight, which was like a tiny pipe, standing behind the tail of the stout barrel.
Obviously, a flat inclined mirror was installed here to refract light into his eyes.
What an interesting and practical skill!
Although the astrologers understood this principle, they never thought to apply it to the stargazing gear.
It appeared that the application of this principle could largely improve the environment for observing the stars. At least, the astrologers did not have to bend over when observing the high constellations.
Given that the effect of the telescope delivered by His Majesty Roland was far better than that of the old-fashioned stargazing gear, what the Astrology Association needed to do was to recalculate the positions of the stars in the existing constellations and draw the stellar map once again. Since the arrival of these six astronomical telescopes, they had found tens of Dark Stars which were unobservable before.
Dispersion Star swept through the area that he was responsible for as per usual. The constellation would form different images as the seasons changed. It may be difficult for the beginners to comprehend, but for Dispersion Star, the brilliant rays of the constellation were as familiar as the wrinkles on his own face.
After finishing observing the first constellation, a ray of negligible light came into his eyes as he prepared to move the telescope.
For an instant, Astrologer of Dispersion Star felt his blood curdle.
Holding his breath, he focused his eyes in that direction.
That was not an illusion...
A dim glimmer of light hid between Hexagram and Blazing Star, looked as if the glimmer of light would extinguish at any time. However, what was different from the stars around it was obvious.
It was red.